Das Kleine Pseudo-Organic
Jan. 11th, 2007 11:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
imomusBack in 2000 I wrote a piece called The Post-Bit Atom which looked at new forms of respect for non-digital stuff which were then emerging amongst people who sat in front of computers all day. It was a thought very much prompted by my environment at the time, Manhattan Chinatown, where digital designers brushed up against people whose job was selling melons from a box or frogs from a bucket. It was all about the differences and the affinities between those two activities.
Since then, I've found the idea of the "post-bit atom" quite a useful one to describe some things I notice happening. First of all, computers are getting better at mapping the real world, whether it's with Google Earth, or their ever-improving digital sound capture capability, or weather prediction, or virtual sex. Secondly, the things which can't really be communicated in digital form have taken on a new importance and a new dignity. One-off artworks, performances, new types of social gathering like Pecha Kucha, music played on acoustic instruments, very visceral rock performances by the likes of Lightning Bolt, all these things have seen a resurgence. So the boundary between "what computers can just about do" and "what computers can't yet do" has become a very interesting and important place, and real estate values are rising, as it were, on both sides of it.
Rinus Van Alebeek, who's organizing the second Berlin Kleine Field Recordings Festival, to be held in February, puts it this way:
"Sometimes... a person's website is the final destination of his productivity. The majority of the performing artists I met through internet. It is easy to maintain a digital relation. But to my idea there is also life after the world wide web... Berlin can be considered one of the cities in the world with a amazingly lively experimantral / noisical scene. Musicians who have dedicated themselves to this artform often incorporate field recordings in their performances / compositions. But they seldom make appearances where exclusively field recordings are used. I don't know of any venue in Berlin with a programme that includes at least one weekly performance of pure field recordings."
So Rinus set about organizing a regular festival event, completely without sponsorship, in which people just play ambient sound, no music. (I actually complained when one of the performers last time started playing some techno basslines, and Rinus went and had a word with him! Only natural organic sound, please!) On February 9th I'll be playing some field recordings I made in Japan at the Festival, at a Berlin venue to be announced, as part of the Travelogues day of the festival.
Meanwhile, I'm interested in how the web streams pseudo-organic experiences towards us. The Guardian today has a fairly conventional illustrated podcast in which crime writer Ian Rankin guides us around "his" Edinburgh. It's talky and rather stale, and the photos are completely lacking in atmosphere or texture. Better are Arte Radio's Cartes Postales Sonores, audio postcards from various exotic locations. And much more innovative is Cornelius' Google Maps remix project, in which he superimposes sound clips on moving Google maps, allowing you to blend his clips with those of other artists, then zooming in on Nakameguro and running a little movie that pays tribute to the Eames' "Powers of Ten" film, substituting a piece of sushi for the sunbathing American family of the original. Since the iPhone does both audio and Google Maps, perhaps Cornelius can hack a way to link the two: Tokyo bike rides that change the balance of the mix you're listening to according to which corner you turn, for instance.
Since then, I've found the idea of the "post-bit atom" quite a useful one to describe some things I notice happening. First of all, computers are getting better at mapping the real world, whether it's with Google Earth, or their ever-improving digital sound capture capability, or weather prediction, or virtual sex. Secondly, the things which can't really be communicated in digital form have taken on a new importance and a new dignity. One-off artworks, performances, new types of social gathering like Pecha Kucha, music played on acoustic instruments, very visceral rock performances by the likes of Lightning Bolt, all these things have seen a resurgence. So the boundary between "what computers can just about do" and "what computers can't yet do" has become a very interesting and important place, and real estate values are rising, as it were, on both sides of it.
Rinus Van Alebeek, who's organizing the second Berlin Kleine Field Recordings Festival, to be held in February, puts it this way:
"Sometimes... a person's website is the final destination of his productivity. The majority of the performing artists I met through internet. It is easy to maintain a digital relation. But to my idea there is also life after the world wide web... Berlin can be considered one of the cities in the world with a amazingly lively experimantral / noisical scene. Musicians who have dedicated themselves to this artform often incorporate field recordings in their performances / compositions. But they seldom make appearances where exclusively field recordings are used. I don't know of any venue in Berlin with a programme that includes at least one weekly performance of pure field recordings."
So Rinus set about organizing a regular festival event, completely without sponsorship, in which people just play ambient sound, no music. (I actually complained when one of the performers last time started playing some techno basslines, and Rinus went and had a word with him! Only natural organic sound, please!) On February 9th I'll be playing some field recordings I made in Japan at the Festival, at a Berlin venue to be announced, as part of the Travelogues day of the festival.
Meanwhile, I'm interested in how the web streams pseudo-organic experiences towards us. The Guardian today has a fairly conventional illustrated podcast in which crime writer Ian Rankin guides us around "his" Edinburgh. It's talky and rather stale, and the photos are completely lacking in atmosphere or texture. Better are Arte Radio's Cartes Postales Sonores, audio postcards from various exotic locations. And much more innovative is Cornelius' Google Maps remix project, in which he superimposes sound clips on moving Google maps, allowing you to blend his clips with those of other artists, then zooming in on Nakameguro and running a little movie that pays tribute to the Eames' "Powers of Ten" film, substituting a piece of sushi for the sunbathing American family of the original. Since the iPhone does both audio and Google Maps, perhaps Cornelius can hack a way to link the two: Tokyo bike rides that change the balance of the mix you're listening to according to which corner you turn, for instance.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-11 03:26 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-11 04:55 pm (UTC)To help you unravel
The worries of living today.
When the poor brain is cracking
There's nothing like packing
A suitcase and sailing away.
Take a run 'round Vienna,
Granada, Ravenna, Sienna
And then a-'round Rome.
Have as high time, a low time,
And in no time
You'll be singing "Home, Sweet Home".